Okroshka

The Russian cold soup of diced vegetables, egg, and ham under kvas or soured milk, thick with dill

Origin: Moscow & Central Russia

From the journey of Dill.

Okroshka divides Russians more reliably than almost any other dish, and the argument is about the liquid. The older form is made with kvas, the lightly fermented drink of rye bread, which is faintly sour, faintly sweet, and very slightly fizzy. The other camp uses kefir or thinned soured milk, which gives a tarter, creamier, altogether different soup. Southern Russia and Ukraine lean towards the dairy version, Moscow and the north towards kvas, and households hold the position they were raised with. A third minority uses mineralnaya voda, sparkling mineral water with a slug of vinegar, which both camps regard as a modern compromise. The name comes from kroshit, to crumble or dice, and that is the technique: everything is cut small and cut evenly. Boiled potato, radish, cucumber, hard-boiled egg, and either boiled beef or, more usually now, a good boiled ham or doktorskaya sausage. It began as peasant food, a way of using cold leftovers in the heat, and it is still eaten almost exclusively in summer. Dill is not a garnish here. Along with spring onion it is one of the two things holding the assembly together, and it is used by the handful. The traditional preparation crushes the spring onion with salt using the back of a spoon or a pestle before it goes in, which bruises it into releasing its juice rather than leaving it sitting on top as raw rings. It is served very cold, sometimes with an ice cube in the bowl, with a spoonful of smetana on top and black bread alongside.

Ingredients

Solids

400 g waxy potatoes, boiled in their skins, cooled, peeled, and diced small
4 whole eggs, hard-boiled, cooled, and diced
300 g cooked ham or boiled beef, diced small
2 whole cucumbers, about 400 g, seeded and diced small
8 whole radishes, diced small
6 whole spring onions, finely sliced
1 tsp salt, for crushing the spring onions
50 g fresh dill, finely chopped

Liquid

1.2 litres kvas, or 800 ml kefir let down with 400 ml cold water

Dressing

2 tbsp Russian or Dijon mustard
200 ml smetana or soured cream
1 tbsp white wine vinegar, if using kefir
0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Method

Boil the potatoes in their skins until just tender, drain, and cool completely before peeling and dicing. Hard-boil the eggs for nine minutes, cool in cold water, and peel.
Dice the potato, egg, ham, cucumber, and radish to roughly the same small size, about 7 mm.
Put the sliced spring onions in the bottom of a large bowl with the teaspoon of salt and crush them against the side with the back of a spoon until they darken and go limp.
Add all the diced solids to the bowl along with the dill, and turn everything together.
In a jug, whisk the mustard and half the smetana into a little of the kvas or kefir until smooth, then stir this back into the rest of the liquid with the pepper, and the vinegar if you are using kefir.
Pour the liquid over the solids, stir once, and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Taste for salt when thoroughly cold, and serve in deep bowls with a spoonful of smetana, more dill, and black bread.

Notes

Kvas for cooking is not the same as sweet bottled drinking kvas. Look for okroshechny kvas at Eastern European grocers, which is drier and made for this. If only the sweet kind is available, cut it with a third of its volume of water and a tablespoon of vinegar. The kefir version is the easier place to start and is what most Russian households now make on a weeknight. Kefir alone is too thick; let it down with cold water until it pours freely. Do not dress it more than three or four hours ahead. The cucumber weeps, the radish loses its bite, and the dill fades. Dice everything in advance by all means, but hold the liquid back. Botvinya, with sorrel and beet tops, and svekolnik, the cold beetroot soup on kefir, are the other two members of this cold-soup family and use dill in exactly the same way.

The Gastrographer

Name: Okroshka
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 2 h
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Moscow & Central Russia
Ingredients: 400 g waxy potatoes, boiled in their skins, cooled, peeled, and diced small; 4 whole eggs, hard-boiled, cooled, and diced; 300 g cooked ham or boiled beef, diced small; 2 whole cucumbers, about 400 g, seeded and diced small; 8 whole radishes, diced small; 6 whole spring onions, finely sliced; 1 tsp salt, for crushing the spring onions; 50 g fresh dill, finely chopped; 1.2 litres kvas, or 800 ml kefir let down with 400 ml cold water; 2 tbsp Russian or Dijon mustard; 200 ml smetana or soured cream; 1 tbsp white wine vinegar, if using kefir; 0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control